December 2017

Deciding on a title for the LSA is the most important thing because you would know your focus area and narrow it to be able to cover it in 2000-2500 words. Once you know what your title is, the rest is easy (I’m just kidding, nothing is easy :D) but you would know what your focus is.

Don’t go back and forth between systems and skills, or a system and another. Once you start the process of going back and forth between options, you’ll be frustrated and probably won’t know what to write and how to write. Just stick with the first idea you get, ask for your tutor feedback, and start writing.

It is a good idea to pick a system or a receptive skill for the first LSA, or even the first two LSAs, and leave the productive skill till the third or fourth LSA.

So, what does an LSA title look like?

The titles of LSAs in Delta are long and might be up to 20 words! Depending on what you’re analyzing, for whom, and using what. Some sample titles (thanks for my friends Romina, Basak, Duygu, Nastya, Maria, Ebru, and Saoirse for providing me with some of their titles) :

What does an LSA title contain?

The word used to introduce the learners

The level of the learners

The Skill/System you’re analyzing

The genre/context

The word used to introduce the learners:

Avoid using the word ‘teaching’ it entails that the lesson is teacher-centered and the focus is on teaching rather than learning. Use words like enabling, helping, and developing, these words shifts the attention to the learners. To add, developing or helping the learners is what actually is going to happen in the lesson, since the learners won’t be able to be introduced to a system/skill, practice, and become experts at it in one lesson, right?

The level of the learners:

Mentioning the level of the learners, like lower-level or higher-level learners, in your titles narrows your focus to that level. It would help you when writing the issues and suggestions section(s) in your LSA. Picking a specific level means that your issues will be about that level. Sometimes, it is a good idea to narrow down to a level since some areas come with numerous learning issues and you need to keep the number to four or five issues due to the word count.

The Skill/System you’re Analyzing:

Obviously, you will need to write the system or the skills your LSA is about. be careful though not to choose something that can’t be covered in 2500 words. When I wanted to write a grammar LSA I thought about the past tense and past aspects. After pondering on the decision for like half an hour, I realized that I would need like 10,000 words to cover the topic. Instead, I went for used to and would for expressing past habits.

The genre/context:

You don’t have to write a specific genre, but sometimes you need to. Like if your LSA is about scanning and skimming it might help to add the genre or the context that these sub-skills will be practiced. Be careful though, if you include the genre in your title, you need to analyze the genre in your LSA. One of my LSAs (my first actually) was about developing scanning and skimming in reading, and I added the genre to the title. My tutor read my LSA and asked me about the genre analysis, and I was like “do I need to add it?!!!!” I had to spend a whole evening researching the genre to include an analysis in the LSA (I don’t need to talk about how frustrated and upset I was, and how I felt I was going to fail the assignment. But I didn’t!!)

So, that’s all I have to say about titles. Remember, pick an area quickly to avoid frustration, and then give a careful thought about the wording of the title. Of course, your tutor will provide support, but it’s HIGHLY recommended to have an idea in mind before going to your tutor.